Continuing Our Quest to Discover Mary I’s Connections to and Beyond

Intro: Hello and welcome to HistBites. Join us as we delve into the past and go on a journey to discover some of the county's best and occasionally unknown history. We'll be speaking to experts and enthusiasts and asking them to reveal some of our hidden heritage, as well as share with you a few fascinating untold tales.

Welcome back to a new episode of Hampshire HistBites. In this week’s episode, Johanna Strong delves deeper into the story of Queen Mary I and her links with Hampshire. But before we start, I just need to give a content warning. Content warning: This episode contains a sensitive topic that some people may find uncomfortable. It concerns phantom pregnancies. If you wish to avoid this 4-minute section, please skip between 11 minutes 15 seconds and 15 minutes 18 seconds.

Johanna: Chances are if you’re listening to this podcast, you have some interest in royalty. Or at least Hampshire’s role in historical royalty. Or maybe you’re here to learn more about Hampshire in general! Whatever the reason, I do hope you learn something new about Wolvesey Castle, Hampton Court Palace, or Mary I and are inspired to visit either – or both! – of these sites once it’s safe to do so. Now, as they say, on with the show!

One thing that hasn’t changed much from the time of the Tudors to today’s royal family is how often they move house. In the winter months, Elizabeth II will most often be found at Buckingham Palace, where she conducts her day-to-day official royal duties. At Christmas, she’s most often at Sandringham with her family. And then in the summer, she takes a working holiday and heads to Balmoral. This pattern of moving around with the seasons isn’t new. Mary I, England’s first crowned queen regnant and the topic of the podcast today, frequently moved her court from palace to palace, from city to city. While much of the time this was done in order to give servants a chance to clean the palaces after they had been used for months on end, sometimes the court moved for very special occasions.

Two of these special occasions in Mary’s reign occurred in 1554 and 1555, at the time of her marriage to Philip II of Spain at and at the time of her lying-in at Hampton Court Palace. In the modern day, most royal fans could tell you almost instantly where Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married. And most could give you at least a general physical description of the façade of the hospital where Catherine Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her and Prince William’s children. Whereas the whereabouts of today’s royal family are generally much commented upon, we’ve practically forgotten about these important moments from Mary I’s life. It’s my goal today to change that and to give you insight into two of the most important places and moments of Mary I’s reign.

We’ll start a little closer to home for our Hampshire listeners, at Winchester Cathedral. Well, more precisely, we’re not really going to be talking about the Cathedral itself but rather the Bishop’s palace located behind the Cathedral, a palace which is in ruins today. This is Wolvesey Castle, and it was the ’s home through the medieval period. What’s still there today is largely from the 12th century’s most famous occupant, , the brother of King Stephen.

Let’s rewind to July 1554, to July 19th at 3pm to be exact. Philip II has just arrived in Southampton. The following Monday – July 23rd – he left Southampton for Winchester to meet his future wife Mary. Philip’s retinue on this journey was so large that Elizabethan chronicler Raphael Holinshed and his co- authors’ – who put together the famous Holinshed’s Chronicles – record that there were more than two thousand horses. Upon arriving in Winchester, Philip made his way immediately to the Cathedral and was met by the Lord Chancellor and the Bishops of Durham, Ely, London, Lincoln, and Chichester, the clergy all being – as Scottish writer John Elder put it in one of his sixteenth-century letters – “mitred, coped, and staved”.

Once his prayers and the worship were finished, he retired to the Dean’s House, which had been “gorgeously prepared for him”. As Holinshed and his colleagues tell us, “the Queen herself was lodged at the Bishop’s Palace”, where she was likely staying in the Bishop of Winchester’s own private chambers, since this is where royalty normally stayed when they were hosted by the Bishop. John Elder also reports that at 10pm that evening Philip “was brought by the council a privy way to the Queen, where her Grace very lovingly, yea, and most joyfully received him. And after they had talked together half an hour they kissed, and departed.” They also shared a moment that will resound with the romantic in all of us; Elder writes that “at [Philip’s] departing he desired the Queen’s Highness to teach him what he should say to the lords in English, at his departing, and she told him he should say ‘good night, my lords all.’” As he came by the lords, he said as the queen had taught him. What a sweet moment for the bride and groom to share days before their wedding!

At 3pm the next day – that would be July 24th, the day before their wedding – Philip made his way to Wolvesey again to see Mary, who met him in the hall. In a missive to the Holy Roman Emperor – Philip’s father Charles V – we learn that Philip had walked from the Deanery “by way of some gardens” to see Mary to discuss with her his new title of King of Naples, a wedding present from his father. The same missive tells us that Philip “bore himself with [Mary] and with her ladies so gallantly, with so gracious a manner, that all present were delighted and called down a thousand blessings on his head.” As we can see here, it was at Wolvesey that Mary and Philip had their first conversations as a betrothed couple.

The appendix to the Chronicle of Queen Jane – a Marian chronicle – details part of the wedding banquet, though of course this account must be taken with a grain of salt because though it is “the official account recorded by the English heralds”, the Victorian compilers of this appendix note that they had “not been able to discover the original or contemporary manuscript; but there are several copies of it both at the College of Arms and the British Museum, some of them less complete from abridgment.” Nevertheless, this account is given to us by Edward Underhill, who says that “on the marriage day, the king and the queen dined in the hall in the Bishop’s palace, sitting under the cloth of estate”. He describes how “the second course at the marriage of a king [or in this case a queen!] is given unto the bearers” but he quickly clarifies that by that he means “the meat, but not the dishes, for they were of gold”. Of particular note to many was that Mary ate off gold plate while Philip ate off silver. They were, after all, in England and Mary was the reigning monarch in England while Philip was merely her consort. Had they been in Philip’s territories, Philip would have eaten off gold plate and Mary off silver. I find it so fascinating that even the plates are a symbol of status!

Interestingly, though, this history isn’t particularly highlighted at Wolvesey these days. The English Heritage website mentions Mary’s stay there only briefly, highlighting the wedding feast that occurred after the wedding in the Cathedral. Their larger history of Wolvesey doesn’t mention Mary at all! This larger history is based on the interpretive placards around the site today, and it’s significant that these placards portray the medieval history more than the early modern. Now, I might be biased because I do quite enjoy everything Mary-related, but if I were designing interpretive placards for a site which hosted the wedding feast of England’s first crowned queen regnant to England’s first king consort, I’d most certainly highlight it! In any case, the majority of Wolvesey’s interpretation of Mary is found in a brief paragraph on their website and not at the site itself.

Next time you’re in Winchester, why not make a stop at Wolvesey Castle and try to imagine the luxury and splendour it would have contained when Mary was housed there before the wedding. And what a different place it would have been on July 25th 1554 with all the silver and gold plate reflecting all the candlelight. And when you’re reading the signs around the site, remember that this is a significant spot for Mary, too.

Content warning: Some people may find the nest section uncomfortable. It concerns phantom pregnancies. If you wish to avoid this section, please skip to ‘end of content warning’. The other site which hosted a significant event in Mary’s regnal life was Hampton Court Palace, where she stayed throughout the last few months of her supposed pregnancy in 1554-1555. You might be wondering why I’ve just said ‘supposed’ pregnancy. Surely someone either is or isn’t pregnant? Technically, no! I’m not a medical doctor, so please don’t use this as a go-to definitive medical position, but there is such a thing – which still happens today! – colloquially called a phantom pregnancy. Generally, what happens is that the body mimics pregnancy – including morning sickness, growth of the abdomen, and a lack of menstrual cycles – without the development of a fetus.

Of course, in the 1550s, there were no ultrasounds, no way to confirm the presence of a foetus until the child ‘quickened’ or started moving in utero. As a result, the fact that Mary’s abdomen had swelled, her periods had stopped, and she had experienced morning sickness was enough for an announcement to be made that Mary was pregnant and was carrying the next heir to the throne. By the 28th of November 1554, it was publicly announced that Mary was “quick with child” and a procession was held in London with a Te Deum – a service of Thanksgiving to God – sung at St Paul’s. In Mary’s case, she believed she was pregnant, but it turned out that it was likely a phantom pregnancy since there was no visible miscarriage and eventually no birth.

Pregnancy had many more rites and rituals in the early modern world than it does for many today. The biggest difference in Western Europe today is that there is no longer a period of confinement or lying-in, where historically, noble women retreated to their chambers with a handful of female servants and were separated from all men for the last about month and a half of their pregnancy. Tapestries would be hung on the wall and over the windows to limit contact with the outside world. This was done under the assumption that outside air was unhealthy or even dangerous for parent and baby. Since Mary had her confinement at Hampton Court, she spent much time here immediately before the expected birth and so it became a significant site in her life. Not only was Mary preparing for birth, she was a queen regnant preparing for birth – a first for England. She was married to a king with quite a lot of land and who could potentially pass on some of his territory to this child, and she was awaiting the birth of the – hopefully – next king of England. Needless to say, this was a massive moment in her personal and regnal life!

What’s important here, though, isn’t necessarily the fact that Mary was pregnant, but that she has been left out of the historical narrative at Hampton Court Palace, even though she was a significant monarch and had personal and regnal ties to the Palace. Carole Levin – among others – has noted that Mary and Philip went to Hampton Court in April 1555 because it was here that they wanted their heir to be born.

End of content warning

If you’ve visited Hampton Court, some of the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that Mary is missing from the section about Henry VIII’s heirs. There’s a portrait of Elizabeth and a portrait of Edward, and there’s even a portrait of Anne Boleyn, but there isn’t even a hint of Mary! Surely even just a copy of a portrait could have been attained so that each of Henry’s heirs are featured? In the video explanation of the Tudors, Mary is also skipped over. The narrator goes from talking about Edward’s reign and his death to speaking of Elizabeth’s reign. The only mention of Mary is that Elizabeth’s reign came after her sister’s. Given that Mary fought – literally – for her throne in 1553 and that most people know her at least by her wrongful “Bloody Mary” nickname, it’s surprising that she’s not given any mention.

Why, then, is Mary not remembered in greater detail at either of these sites? I think it’s because Mary is still relatively unknown to popular history. Or to be more nuanced, she’s known but for all the wrong reasons. Most people give a knowing head nod when they hear about Bloody Mary but many struggle to identify her under her regnal name, Mary I. For this reason, many people see Mary as the heretic-burning religious zealot who preceded Elizabeth. Unfortunately, this means that she doesn’t get much recognition in the popular imagination and people don’t generally seek out places important to her life. People are much more fascinated by the life of Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I. Either people have a preconception of who Mary is and so aren’t particularly interested in seeing sites associated with her life, or they aren’t familiar with her reign at all and so sites connected to her emphasise other historical connections in order to encourage visitors. I’d like to think that if more people knew the true story behind Mary – and why she’s been so maligned in the historical narrative – then we might see more interpretation at historic sites about her. This might be a pipe dream, but it would be lovely.

The most popular site connected to Mary is Framlingham Castle, where she raised her troops to defend her title of Queen from Lady Jane Grey after her brother Edward VI’s death. This is followed closely by Winchester Cathedral as the site of her marriage. I would bet, though, that many don’t even know these locations – or if they do, they don’t know the connection to Mary. If you’d like to know more about other sites associated with Mary, do listen to my first episode all about Mary at Winchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

I do hope you’ve learned a thing or two from this episode. We’ve looked at how Mary has been largely overlooked by the historical narrative, especially at Wolvesey Castle in Winchester where she stayed before her wedding to Philip II of Spain and where she had her wedding feast and at Hampton Court Palace where she waited to no avail for the birth of the child. Mary is often left out in the popular imagination either because she’s seen as Bloody Mary and so she isn’t really a selling feature for places other than the London Dungeon or because she isn’t as well-known as she ought to be. I’d argue, though, that Mary should be better remembered than she is, especially at sites like Wolvesey and Hampton Court which saw history being made in her reign. Next time you’re out and about at either of these sites, do think of Mary and try to imagine her there on these momentous days in her life – I know I will be!

Thank you so much for listening! Until next time, enjoy your Marian adventures!

Outro: We hope you enjoyed listening to today's episode. If you'd like to find out a little bit more about what we've been talking about, then please visit the website, winchesterheritageopendays.org, click on Hampshire HistBites, and there you'll find today's show notes as well as some links to more information.

Thank you for listening.

From Wikipedia: during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.